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Author
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Topic: In an iTunes age, do we need the record store?
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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 11-27-2011 07:20 PM
The main thing that killed CD sales was the ever-rising prices. When I started buying CDs in 1985, The Wherehouse stores had ALL their CDs priced at $11.99. A few years later, they started pricing everything at list price, and then list prices started going up. Most current albums are list-priced at $18.99, which is absolutely ridiculous. The first years CDs were out, record companies even said that prices would go DOWN when discs became cheaper to manufacture, but instead they went up. Prices on home video on the other hand have been going down. Many times I've looked up the soundtrack of a movie I recently bought on DVD or Blu-Ray only to find that it would cost me MORE than what I paid for the actual movie!
Another big problem is that a lot of current music is mixed with the dynamic range all messed up- it's called the "loudness war" and everything is mixed to sound as loud as possible. What's funny is I've seen examples of current albums where the LP will be mixed correctly, but the CD will have the crappy mix, and recording the LP to CD will produce a better-sounding disc than the retail CD.
Record companies have been digging their own grave for a long time, and I hate to see record stores die before they do. I've suggested many time that if the "kids" are going to illegally download stuff for free, they need to start catering to the people who really CARE about sound quality- meaning those who actually sit down and listen to entire albums on a BIG sound system, not those who think earbuds are good enough. They seem to be doing that with LPs, but CDs really are the better format when they're done right. Super Audio CDs are great too, but there really hasn't been a lot of great material released on that format.
Most of today's popular music is crap, too. I have an open mind about music, but so many current 'rock' songs I've heard on the radio sound the same, and R&B sounds cheap compared to the older stuff- crappy drum machines instead of full orchestrations. Rap is just a joke- it just amounts to someone taking an old recording, cutting it up and talking over it and calling that a new 'song'. I've heard SOME new music that I really liked, but it doesn't seem to get played on the radio very much. (The current state of radio sure isn't helping music sales either, neither is MTV's abandonment of music.) Pet Shop Boys still do great stuff, but everything they've put out over the past 20 years has gotten ZERO airplay. I bought their "Nightlife" album a couple years after it was issued, not having heard anything off of it, and after playing it for the first time I asked "How the hell weren't some of these songs all over the radio? This should have been HUGE!"
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Jesse Skeen
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1517
From: Sacramento, CA
Registered: Aug 2000
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posted 11-28-2011 02:46 AM
A BIG problem I have with radio nowadays is so many stations focusing only on older music- it's funny how radio tends to cater to the 'older' people when the record industry wants younger people to buy their stuff. Stations that only play oldies are a waste of airspace- you could conceivably buy every song that they're ever going to play, and have no need for that station anymore. I have Steve Miller's Greatest Hits CD (and 8-track too!) so I don't need to hear any of those songs more than once every few months on the radio, while tons of new music doesn't get played at all. We have a "classic rock" station that's been around more than 20 years now- funny thing was that when it started I said it didn't deserve to live more than a few months. The attitude at these stations is "Anything made in the current decade couldn't possibly be any good, so we're not going to play it." I've noticed they've added some 80s stuff now like U2, which they wouldn't have played before, and anyone listening exclusively to that station wouldn't have heard of.
Another big problem I've had with radio is that most stations only play songs released as a single- so when a new album comes out they'll just play ONE song off it over and over, then a few weeks later maybe play one other song off it. (I'm not sure how they do this now since 45s and CD singles are extinct.) Radio SHOULD be something where you hear stuff that is new and interesting (and like so much that you go buy the album.) I do most of my radio-listening passively in the car, there should be something compelling enough to make me want to tune in on my main sound system in the living room, sit down and actually LISTEN to it for hours on end. (The non-profit station KDVS at UC Davis comes close, though they often get weird just for weirdness' sake. I had a show on there briefly back in 1991 and was discouraged from playing anything that was on a major label at all, even if it was something that didn't get played on other radio stations.)
And a lot of current music IS crap, no matter how old you are. I didn't like rap even when I was younger, and I didn't like a lot of stuff that was popular at the time. I'd still rather listen to Journey than Eminem right now- their songs were cheesy, but at least they were SONGS.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 11-28-2011 08:17 AM
quote: Monte L. Fullmer
..and I still have some shellac '78's in as well as a ton of vinyl... I miss buying open reel, prerecorded tapes also.
+1 on shellac and vinyl, though I've never owned or listened to pre-recorded 1/4 inch tapes.
As someone who listens mainly to classical and jazz, audio quality is obviously a major issue, but there's something subjective about it. I have bought a few CD reissues of the early stereo LPs I really enjoy (e.g. Van Cliburn paying Brahms's piano concerto #2, RCA LSC-2581; Bernstein conducting Nielsen's symphony #3 in 1965, Columbia MS 6769; John Coletrain's Blue Train or Oscar Peterson's Very Tall), but the main problem is that the noise reduction applied to remove the original tape hiss is so aggressive that it takes away most of the high frequency detail in the music. Also, that tape hiss is part of the sonic experience of the original LPs, and, weird as this sounds, I miss it when I don't hear it!
However, I think that's more a problem with the way these albums have been remastered for digital presentation rather than the digital medium itself. I have a few CD transfers I've made myself of albums that were bought used and are a bit dirty and scratched (and therefore I don't want to risk stylus damage from repeated plays), and I don't have the same problem listening to them as I do with commercial reissues of albums from that period.
On the subject of vinyl, I recently had an email from Amazon announcing the launch of their "vinyl store". The range of stuff on offer is impressive - most of the boutique labels currently pressing new vinyl seem to be represented, with similar prices to those you'd find in specialist shops. I hope that isn't another nail in the coffin of the specialist shops.
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